Why Are Sports Championship Hats So Damn Gaudy?

DISCLAIMER: I am a comfortably heterosexual male. I like women.

I also have a fashion sense. Just remember that first line as you read this post

I received my Los Angeles Lakers 2010 NBA Champions hat a few days ago. Actually, I didn’t think I was going to get one. It was a gift from my father.

The thought of a gift is always grand, but even if I knew someone whose team had just won a pro sports championship, I would never buy them the official hat signifying the event. I just wouldn’t know how to answer one question:

How could someone wear this and not look ridiculous?

People want to feel like they are part of the team. That’s one of the reasons why grown men fight 8-year-old girls for foul balls and towels thrown into the stands (also read: money). Anything athletes will toss our way — be it a wrist band, ball, strand of hair, protective cup — we’ll step on our grandmother’s throat to get at it. That cap above was worn by the Lakers on the court and in the locker room after defeating the Celtics in Game 7 a couple of weeks ago. So, it’s an obviously hot seller.

But just look at it. It’s horrible. It’s crowded. What is “NBA” doing in the lower case? For some reason, that really bothers me. Now, I don’t mind that whole “Back 2 Back” patch in the middle. That’s how the Lakers format their championship banners. But if you are more than eight feet away from that hat, could you really tell me which team this hat is celebrating? You can’t see it! You can make out 2010 NBA (or nba, whatever) Champions, but shouldn’t the Lakers logo be displayed more prominently? It is their championship. Instead, this hat is too busy blinding you with the word “Champions”.

This isn’t an isolated case. Most championship hats are ugly as sin. Just looking in my bedroom, here are a few I found.

There are my allegiances.

Starting at the top, we have another size issue (sorry, ladies). Why does the traditional Yankees emblem have to be so tiny on such a wide front? You have about five different colors on the hat. Why it contains gold and red, I have no idea but then it’s also a two-tone hat, which makes it that much more distracting.

The Giants’ official 2007 Super Bowl Championship hat is atrocious. It’s so crowded, so active, you have no idea where to look. The hat czar or whomever has the final say on these designs should have just used that left-side logo and moved it on the front. It has everything that the NFL wants to say: Super Bowl XLII. But those smaller letters would allow more space for what really matters: The team that won the damn game. And again, we are just incapable of producing championship hats with a single background color, can we? We just have to throw in some red for kicks around the air holes and button.

I actually like The 2009 Lakers championship cap. Yeah, the logo is still not that large, but it’s also not crowded. There is an even amount of spacing throughout the cap. And one color? Hallelujah! But I can’t be entirely positive. The subject of this post is bad championship hats and there are a couple of reasons why this one is tough to sport.

The white stitching is pointless. It just spins around the hat like a spider’s web and adds nothing to the style. More importantly, this hat presses on your temples when you wear it. So while it may not look terrible, it makes you feel like your head is in a vice.

One thing I’ve noticed about sports hats: It’s better to get to the championship game that to win it, at least from a style standpoint. The Giants’ 2007 conference championship hat is very straight and basic. I like that. I like simple. The team logo is well displayed in the center. Those strips of color on the sides look like wings. I consider that smooth. This hat tells you everything you need to know without cluttering the look.

Don’t you forget that the L.A. Xtreme won the only XFL Championship. Tommy Maddox — MVP, son! I went to five or six of their games and I actually liked the product. Sure, it wasn’t pretty, but the tickets were cheap and I still think possession to start an NFL game should be decided on a two-person scrum at midfield.
And that whole floating camera on a wire idea that’s all over the league now? That came from the XFL.